


Could Have Fooled Me

by MushroomDoggo



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Autopsy, Case Fic, Comedy, F/M, Humor, Romantic Comedy, Time Loop, and mulder does not, first person pov- Scully, in character tho, in which scully believes, real science, rom com
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 12:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4522374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MushroomDoggo/pseuds/MushroomDoggo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of strange and seemingly unrelated deaths bring Scully and Mulder to Mystic, Connecticut, where Scully is promptly caught in a time loop.</p><p>Teen for language and episode-typical violence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Scully, what do you think of this tie?”

As usual, my partner had brought a mysterious box to work with him. He always had some weird new thing to show off, whether it be something related to a case or just something completely insane. 

Today, Mulder had produced a horrible tie printed over and over with the same little flying saucer sucking up a cow with a lime-green tractor beam.

I gave the usual sigh, eye-roll and arm-fold. “It’s tacky and tasteless.”

“Ooh! Just like me!” Mulder was capable of an excited tone without any noticeable change in his face. The first few times he’d pulled that trick it made me laugh. By now, though…

“I hope you’re not planning on actually wearing that around?” I stated, though it was intended to be more of a question.

Mulder laughed. “Tomorrow is April Fools day, Scully! Of course I’m going to wear it!”

I shook my head. “The point of April Fools day is to trick people into believing lies, not to hit them over the head with the truth.”

“Hey!” Mulder had already taken off his first tie. He was bending down to look into a black monitor, using his reflection in the darkened screen to help him tie this new atrocity around his neck. “You know, I kind of feel like you don’t get an opinion. What do you know about fashion, anyway? You wear practically the same pantsuit everyday.”

I raised my eyebrows slowly-- my secret weapon. While I made a face at him for an exaggerated amount of time, I was able to think of the snarkiest of comebacks.

I was off my game today, however. Mulder couldn’t see my face as he was busy gazing at his own reflection, and just skipped to the next order of business before I had a chance to open my mouth.

“By the way-- I think I found us a little something interesting.” Mulder finished tying, then backed away as he admired his new tchotchke. 

“Is that right?” I asked. My arms were still crossed from my last reaction, so I punctuated it by sitting down and crossing my legs.

Mulder peeked down at his tie, though he was now standing up straight, so as to adjust it to perfection. “Some weird bodies have turned up in Connecticut. It was similar to an older X-File… does the town of Mystic, Connecticut ring a bell?”

“Should it?”

Mulder shook his head slowly. He was still trying to fix his tie just right, evidently worried what a slight change in position would do to it. “About 20 years ago, a bunch of corpses turned up that were… well, ‘up in years.’”

“And?”

“Dental records proved that each victim was under twenty years old.” Mulder, finally satisfied with the dimple in his cheesy tie, turned to look at me. “The consensus was that it was some kind of new drug that had just been shipped in, since the town’s on the coast, and they waited for more cases to turn up.”

I nodded. “And they didn’t, I’m guessing.”

He pointed at me. “Bingo.”

I sighed. Time to take him down a notch. “Mulder, there are so many things that could could cause a corpse to appear older than they were. Ritualistic post-mortem liposuction or exsanguination could make the skin appear wrinkled, for one thing. There’s also a disease--”

“Progeria?” Mulder suggested.

I was instantly deflated, knowing that the only reason he decided to jump in was because he’d already proved the theory wrong.

“They were tested. Negative.”

I shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Mulder?”

“It’ll take us just under six hours to get there.”

I scratched at my cheek where a loose lock of hair had been tickling it. “I don’t know…”

Mulder flashed me a pathetically tiny grin. 

I sighed and stood up. “Fine.”

Mulder pumped his fist.

“I don’t know why I ever agree to do these things with you…” I muttered, not really intending for Mulder to hear.

“Because, deep down, you know I’m right, Scully!” he called back over his shoulder.

“Great. Just under six hours.”


	2. Chapter 2

A rattling, warbling guitar riff was what woke me the next morning. I vaguely remembered checking into the hotel… something about only one room left…

I slowly opened my eyes. A blurry shape was hanging over me. Something black and a little bit bouncy.

“Spider!” I shrieked. I’d argue that it was involuntary so early in the morning, but the truth is I probably would have done the same thing at noon.

Mulder stared laughing. “April Fools!” he shouted, removing the now obviously rubbery shape from my view.

I was clutching my blanket with white knuckles as I looked to Mulder, who had shared a not-quite-large-enough room with me the night before.

That’s right. There was “only one room left, but it’s a couple’s suite. That okay with you two?”

Kneeling on the bed beside me, grinning ear to ear, was Mulder. He held a rubber spider tied to a piece of fishing line in his hand. “You awake?” he asked, still laughing. “Scully, your face is bright red… you look like a tomato!”

I gave him a punch in the arm. “Mulder!”

“What? It’s April Fools!”

“What are you doing in the bed?” I demanded. I tried very hard to control my breathing, but the early morning prank had practically given me a heart attack. “You told me you were going to sleep on the floor!”

“I did! I swear!” Mulder tried to defend himself from every blow I threw at him. “I just came up here to dangle the spider!”

“Big mistake!” I shouted with one last punch for emphasis. 

Mulder kept chuckling like a schoolboy who’d gotten away with something, but climbed off the bed. “You’d better get dressed-- they’re expecting us at the morgue in twenty minutes.”

My eyes widened as I grabbed the alarm clock (which had finally finished its terrible wake-up tune, and was now onto two deejays yapping at one another). “Seven o’clock?!”

“What’s wrong?” Mulder was genuinely confused this time as he walked stiff-legged towards the single bathroom. 

“I was going to take a shower!” I complained.

Mulder was silent.

“Mulder?”

He reappeared, a toothbrush in his mouth. “You got time.”

I glanced at the clock, then at the bathroom. Mulder seemed to realise what he had just said and ran back inside, fighting to close the door. I leapt up and ran to the door, ramming into the other side all of my strength.

“You should have gotten a shower last night!” Mulder told me through his straining.

“Last night?!” I repeated, my own voice strong. “I drove us here! Six hours, my ass! It was more like eight!”

“We hit traffic! What do you want from me?” Mulder responded.

“I want you to stop with the April Fools nonsense! It’s been about five minutes and I’m so sick of it!” I screamed.

With that, I was finally able to push through. I was panting hard, but it was worth it.

“Scully, I think I inhaled some toothpaste.”

“Man up,” I muttered, beginning to take off my socks.

“Um…” Mulder pointed at my now bare feet. “Are you going to undress here?”

“Where would you rather me do it, in the parking lot?” I snapped back. “Don’t worry, you’re not get a free show…”

I stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain closed. From here I could toss the clothes over the top of the curtain rail. Somehow, I’d managed to fall asleep in work clothes. I hadn’t even noticed until I was trying to take them off.

“You’d better not pull any more damn pranks while I’m in here Mulder,” I added.

Mulder didn’t respond, just went back to slowly brushing his teeth.

I bent down to look at the shower controls. It seemed pretty straightforward-- a knob for hot, and knob for cold. I turned the hot knob on first.

My second girly scream of the morning came with the ice cold water raining down on my back. Mulder, still brushing his teeth, gasped and started choking. I shut off the water as quickly as I could, grabbing a towel to wrap up in as I ran to Mulder’s side. I gave him a few pounds on the back, just as I was taught.

As Mulder gasped for breath, there was a knock at the door.

“Just wanted to let you folks know-- there was a problem with the hot water heater! Apologize for the inconvenience!” shouted the manager.

I pinched the bridge of my nose as Mulder finished his coughing fit.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

Mulder turned to me, still gripping the counter with both hands, and flashed me a weak grin. “At least my breath is minty fresh.”

I sighed and shook my head. “You’d better call the morgue and tell them we’re going to be late.”

Mulder was breathing heavily through his teeth as he put away his toothbrush. “I don’t have their number.”

“Don’t have their number?” I repeated.

“They called me!” Mulder rasped as passionately as he could without injury. “I didn’t think there’d be a problem.”

“Lemme look them up…” I muttered, striding into the next room. Icy cold trails of water were still leaking out of my hair and running down my spine.

“You’d better--” Mulder tried to speak too loud and ended up coughing. “You’d better make yourself decent, there, Scully.”

I looked at him. His eyes were squinting in pain, and his whole body seemed to be clenched up.

“Mulder, are you sure you’re alright?” I asked.

“It feels a bit like I inhaled an entire ghost pepper,” he explained softly.

His pained face held my gaze a bit longer, but I was able to shake myself out of the trace a moment later. “Finish up and get out, I needed to get back into something work-appropriate.”

Mulder tried to clear his throat, but just went on another coughing jag.

I padded over to the collection of bags we had been too exhausted to unpack the night before. Just a cursory glance was enough to tell me that my usual duffel of clothes was not there.

“Did we bring all the bags inside last night?” I wondered aloud.

“Yes!” Mulder replied. Again, the loud response started him coughing once more. 

“Are you sure?” I asked, walking back around to the bathroom door. 

If I hadn’t been standing there, I wouldn’t have believed it. As Mulder tried to put away his toothbrush in the metal holder, he slipped in the puddle of water I left trailed across the exposed tile and fell into the sink. His hand smacked an open bottle of shampoo that had been laying on the counter and sent it flying through the air. Even as I saw where it was bound to end up, I was somehow unable to move to stop it.

The bottle landed on my pile of clothes and exploded into orange jelly and suds.

“Oops…” Mulder murmured.

All I could do was stand and watch as my only set of clothes was soaked with shampoo.

“I mean… It’s clean, right?” Mulder asked, accompanied by another pathetic grin.

~~~~~

About an hour later we finally arrived at the local morgue, Mulder nearly mute and myself wearing his enormous clothes. It turned out that Mulder, in his hurry to get to Mystic, had left our duffel bag of clothing behind. We had two outfits-- Mulder’s suit and Mulder’s sleep clothes. Mulder argued (by writing it out on a piece of motel stationery) that, since he could barely speak, he should get the suit.

Me being the understanding and giving partner that I am, that left me in a men’s tank top and gym shorts, although I did pull a trenchcoat on over the disaster. Mulder was simply unable to speak.

He did insist on wearing his stupid new tie, however. 

The mortician shot us a few concerned looks, which probably had something to do with me looking like a flasher and the man beside me pointing at things and elbowing me.

“Who did the autopsy?” I asked, attempting to maintain a serious tone.

“I did…” he murmured.

His eyes flitted to Mulder, who was poking around with a pen on the man’s neck.

“Did you find anything that might suggest a genetic disorder?” I wondered.

He shook his head. “This was a perfectly normal young man-- just turned nineteen. He had no severe afflictions at all, not so much as a broken bone, if you can believe that.”

“No allergies?” I asked.

He shook his head again. “No, ma’am.”

Mulder started flapping his hands about, attempting to get our attention.

“What is it, Mulder?” I droned. This was getting old already.

He mimed writing something down with the pen he was holding. The mortician ran for a pad of paper.

“Here you go.” He passed him a clipboard.

Mulder gave him a thumbs-up and took it. 

I sighed and read the writing over his shoulder. “He wants me to ask you if anything suggests a weak immune system.” I turned to Mulder. “Why does that matter?”

Mulder waved the question away.

“Um…” The mortician seemed to be a little distracted by the pair of us once again. “No, he had a very strong immune system. He’s got maybe one doctor’s appointment every other year outside of check-up visits. Each time it was some kind of food poisoning.”

Mulder snapped his fingers and pointed at the mortician, then at me, and strode out of the room.

“Mul--” I started, but he had already turned the corner.

I looked over at the mortician. “Thanks for your help-- we appreciate it.”

“Um… no problem,” he mumbled as I jogged out of the room.

I rammed into the doors at the front of the building, pushing them open just as they had banged shut behind Mulder.

“Mulder!” I called, hoping that he would stop. He didn’t.

I broke into a jog again until I was by his side. “Mulder, I don’t understand. The man was in impeccable health. What made him a target?”

Mulder stopped short, widening his eyes at me.

“I don’t--” I stared at him a while longer. “What does that mean?”

He made a few hand gestures to indicate his frustration.

“What? What do you mean?” I kept repeating.

He tugged on his earlobe.

“S-sounds like?” I tried.

He shook his head, this time cupping his hand around his ear.

“Oh! I said ‘he had perfect health--’”

Mulder held up a hand and pointed at me.

“Wait a minute…” I threw my head back. “Mulder, are you suggesting that his perfect health is what made him a target?”

He nodded enthusiastically.

“I’m guessing the other victims were the same?” I muttered. 

He smiled.

“And now you’re feeling smug because you were right?” I added.

He shrugged a bit and started walking back to the car. I stood there alone with my hands on my hips a while longer, just staring up at the sky and wondering briefly something along the lines of “why me?” before running back to his side.

“Mulder, I’m really hoping this whole “I choked on toothpaste” gag isn’t some elaborate April Fools joke. You’re incredibly embarrassing. I don’t think anyone can take us seriously.”

He gave me a glare that said “Scully, I really am in terrible pain an incredibly inconvenienced.”

I didn’t respond, but kept my eyes fixed on him as I unlocked the driver’s side door and swung inside. Mulder followed me inside, buckling very quickly and then turning to stare at me.

My hands had only just touched the wheel as I realised what his face meant. I gripped it much harder and, sighing, asking “Where do you want to go?”

Mulder smiled a bit and mimed opening a book.

“Library?” I asked.

He nodded.

I dropped a hand to turn the key in the ignition. “You got it.”

~~~~~

The Mystic library was a tiny, quaint little space. It had a very high ceiling but not a lot of floor space, and most of that was taken up by an obscene amount of chairs and tables. I sincerely doubted that there were enough people in the town to occupy all the seats at once, let alone enough in the library at any given time.

There were several shelves of books, mostly dedicated to classic novels and encyclopedias. Shockingly, they had a shelf of two dedicated to mythological books, as well as a handful of trashy romances and an outrageous amount of cookbooks.

Amazingly, Mulder was able to find an appropriate book on Japanese myths and legends. He sat me down at a table at the center of the room, where soft white light was pouring in from the skylight, and began to thumb through the book. I sat as patiently as I could, just watching Mulder flip through the pages of the dusty green tome as I rested my cheek in my hand. 

“Mulder--”

“Shh!” hissed the nearby librarian.

I glanced around the room. There was no one else here, and the librarian was simply leaning back in her chair and literally twiddling her thumbs. Considering my current dress, I wasn’t going to get too angry-- I didn’t really look like the on-the-up-and-up type at the moment.

I shot her a glare, but bent across the table to whisper more effectively. “Mulder, do you even know what you’re looking for?”

Mulder, as an answer, set the book down on the table and spun it around to face me. He pointed rather forcefully to a sketch at the top of the page.

The artist’s rendering at the top depicted a dog-like, perhaps fox-like creature bearing many tails. Its eyes seemed almost eerily human, and it had a heavenly aura surrounding it. With the minimal color in the image, I could tell that the tip of each tail was a different color, encompassing every hue of the rainbow as well as brown, black and white.

“Kitsune…” I read softly off of the caption.

Mulder nodded and enticed me to continue.

I shifted my position and began to read. “The kitsune is a Japanese God (sometimes a minor God or a demigod) that typically takes the form of a fox. They are usually divided into nine categories, all of which are represented in the above rendering: Spirit (red), wind (orange), celestial (yellow), forest (green), water (blue), time (purple), earth (brown), lightning (white), and void (black).

“Mulder, are you telling me that a Japanese fox God did this? In Connecticut?” I asked.

He nodded, pointing to a section below to picture.

I sighed and continued to read: “The time kitsune (represented in purple) is known for being quiet and contemplative, often renown for their abilities to see through time. It draws nourishment by consuming the time of others. Areas inhabited by the time kitsune will appear to have aged very rapidly.”

Mulder smiled.

“This is a fairy tale, Mulder,” I told him, as if he didn’t already know that.

He shrugged and pulled the pen out of his jacket, raising his eyebrows in a request for paper. I grit my teeth and produced a small pad of paper for him to write on.

“I found bite marks on the victim,” I read aloud. “They were too small to be a dog, but too large to be a cat.”

Mulder nodded with me as I read.

“Mulder, have you ever seen a dog?” I asked. “In all seriousness, you are aware that dogs come in all shapes and sizes, correct?”

He rolled his eyes and added a bit more. “The canine punctures went very deep. Fox.”

“I’ll have to get that verified. How did you find the bite, anyway?” I asked.

“Hidden in the wrinkles of the neck-- lots of extra skin. I think his time was stolen.”

I frowned at him. “Yeah, that sure sounds like you.”

Mulder slammed the book shut, earning himself another shushing from the librarian. He winced slightly, but got up to slide the book back into its place. I drummed my fingers lightly on the table and watched the librarian carefully. She was definitely weird… the question was, did it have anything to do with the case?

Lost in my thoughts, Mulder’s gentle tap on my shoulder caused me to jump.

“Hungry?” he mouthed.

I glanced over at the clock on the wall. It was nearing nine thirty, and neither of us had had any breakfast.

“Diner it is, then,” I agreed with a smirk.

We walked cautiously out of the building, being sure to avoid the gaze of the gargoyle-like librarian, and piled back into the car. Mulder took the wheel this time, steering us gently through the groggy streets of Mystic as he flipped through the same six preset radio stations over and over. 

As we pulled up to a red light, Mulder cleared his throat. “I think my voice is coming back, Scully,” he croaked.

“Thank God,” I muttered. Having enough of his indecision, I smacked his hand away from the radio and started searching other stations.  
Mulder allowed me to fool with the radio as he pounded out a random and incoherent beat on the steering wheel. This was his way of being impatient when complaining out loud wasn’t an option.

A sports car pulled up next to us, cherry red, which was blasting thrash metal. A strange combination, I guess, but I tried not to judge too harshly. 

The man inside was less than three feet from me, and he instantly started making a fuss about it. 

He turned down his music so that all his solitary hooting and hollering could better be heard. 

After a few minutes of this I shut off our own radio and leaned out the window. “I’m with the FBI, sir. Do you have a problem?”

“Ooh! Government gal, eh?” he grinned cheesily, lowering his sunglasses to more effectively give me a flirtatious stare. “Hey, I bet I’d look pretty good in some handcuffs, eh, red?”

I was about to roll up the window when Mulder jumped in, rasping croaks and all, to threaten him. “Sir, I can detain you without cause for up to forty-eight hours.”

I whipped over to look at him, knowing this wasn’t true, then back at the man in the car beside us. He seemed worried as well as slightly confused as to why Mulder’s voice sounded the way it did, but the light turned green and we moved on.

“Mulder, where did you get that idea?” I asked.

He shrugged. “He doesn’t know his rights. I just made it up.”

I squinted at him.

“Okay, I got it from a movie I saw about the secret service. Happy?” he added with a little grin.

I chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”

Mulder shook his head, as if that would hide the smile growing larger on his stubbly face. “Diner’s just up here.”

I stretched my neck forward trying to spot it. As we turned the next corner, it came into view. 

It was small and flat, built like a gas station, and decorated with wild blue and red stripes. It screamed “America in the early 1950s.” And that wasn’t just me.

“I had no idea that these throwback places were still around,” Mulder muttered as he shut off the engine. “What do you say, Scully-- wanna put on that poodle skirt and do the sock hop?”

He attempted some kind of dance to go with the suggestion, but the movements were oddly restricted by his seatbelt, which only made things worse. Not that having freedom of motion would have made things any better, exactly.

I sighed and got out of the car. “Come on. We’d better find out if they let exhibitionists eat here.”

“No shirt, no shoes, no shoestring, Scully. That’s what I always say.”

“Wow, it sounds like you’re recovering nicely,” I commented as he locked the car up. 

He shrugged, a huge grin still plastered across his face. “If it’s any consolation, it still hurts like hell.”

I brightened my expression in mocking. “Ah, that does make me feel better!” I sighed. “Come on, Mulder-- let’s see if some good, old-fashioned diner coffee helps that throat out.”

Mulder dropped the keys into his pants pocket and started towards the door. They jingled with every step against his already bulging wallet, and whatever else it was he kept in there.

“Mulder, you sound like a tambourine.”

He laughed. “All men do, Scully. If you ever encounter a man who doesn’t sound like a tambourine, it means he doesn’t have a house, a car, or any pocket change.”

“I think that most of the men I’ve known have been pretty quiet.” I shielded my eyes against the sun as I looked up at Mulder. “Of course, you were never quiet so…”

More chuckling. “That’s how I got where I am.”

“Right. In the basement,” I added.

“Not anymore!” he cheerfully corrected.

I looked up at him again, still squinting into the sun. “Mulder, you’re still in the basement.”

With that we pushed into the diner, the little bell tinkling above our heads. Almost instantly, people started cheering.

Mulder and I were caught off guard by the sheer volume, but a few little noisemakers were added to the mix. I think someone opened one of those confetti poppers, but I didn’t see any confetti actually fly-- I just heard the sound.

“Congratulations! You are our one millionth customers!” shouted a rather… um, jolly waiter as he assaulted us with paper hats.

While I was frozen in fear of the happy customers, the two of us had balloons and a giant cardboard check forced into our hands. Mulder was grinning, of course, but holding things in both hands caused my trenchcoat to open. Just as I was realising what was happening, someone snapped a photo.

The flash knocked me out of my shock, and I looked for the source. A reporter was kneeling on the floor in front of us.

“That one’s for the paper!” he exclaimed happily.

I dropped my end of the check and released the helium-filled balloons to close my trenchcoat again. 

What was there to say? “No, thank you?” “Please, give this to someone else?” 

While Mulder was laughing his ass off, all I could think to say was:

“FBI?” There was no way anyone could hear me murmur this over the cheering, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

Mulder kept laughing, now as a combination of the situation itself and my unexpected reaction.

“Um…” the waiter leaned in to whisper to me. “Just to be clear, that check doesn’t have any monetary value. It’ll get you a free meal any time you want, though!”

I had to hold myself back from saying something along the lines of “Gee, free food at your one location in scenic coastal Connecticut. How kind.”

“What are we waiting for, Scully?” Mulder turned to me. “Let’s find a table!”

I could feel my cheeks turning pink. I didn’t care that this was a tiny, out-of-the-way town-- I did not want a picture of me wearing Mulder’s clothes to appear in anyone’s periodicals. 

As a waitress seated Mulder, I approached the reporter who had snapped our picture.

“Excuse me…”I tapped him on the shoulder and chuckled a bit. “Is there any way you could leave us out of the paper? Or maybe… maybe crop me out somehow?”

The boy laughed. His laughter slowed as he seemed to realise that I was serious. “Why wouldn’t you want your picture in the paper?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off.

“Are you some kinda… are you a criminal, ma’am?” he whispered.

I shook my head. “I’m with the FBI. I just don’t--”

He clearly didn’t listen. “Uh… don’t worry, I won’t run it!”

I scoffed as he ran out the front door. “I am not a criminal!”

Mulder was actually still laughing as I trudged back to the booth, although the current cause was unclear. 

“Shut up, Mulder…” I muttered, sliding into the vinyl booth.

He kept on laughing. “What’s the matter Scully? You embarrassed of people thinking we were up last night churning butter?”

I held up a hand to stop him from continuing. “Please. Not with food on the way.”

More laughter.

“And “embarrassed” isn’t word I’d use. Maybe “ashamed.” Possibly “mortified,”” I suggested. 

Mulder, finally finished laughing it seemed, waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry-- we’ll pick you up a new outfit afterwards. I spotted a thrift shop on our way over.”

“Alright!” the woman came out of nowhere, holding a pad of paper and a pen. “What can I get for the big winners?”

“Something with bacon,” Mulder told her.

She actually started to notate this before looking back at him. “Sir, did you look at the menu I brought you?”

“Do you think you could just bring us some water?” I butted in.

She nodded. “You got it.”

Mulder shrugged and picked up his menu. “Ooh! The Breakfast Meats Blast omelette!” He pointed to the entry in the menu.

“Bacon, Canadian bacon, breakfast sausage, and scrapple, topped with american cheese,” I read. “Something tells me that “blast” is a misnomer.”

Mulder made a mock face of disgust. “Please, Scully! Not with food on the way!”

I sighed, lifting the menu up so that I wouldn’t have to look at Mulder’s snide face a second longer. There were a few blissful minutes of silence before the waitress returned to take down our orders and then I could no longer hide from him.

As Mulder unwrapped his straw, he asked “What are you thinking?”

I took a quick sip of water. “About what?”

“About the case. We just haven’t talked about it very much, and I thought--”

“Well, I know it’s not a kitsune,” I began.

Mulder breathed out slowly. “Wow. Take me down, why don’t you?”

“Be serious, Mulder. This is remarkably similar to cases we’ve looked at before-- all of them ritual sacrifices or…” I sighed, trying to think of another conceivable explanation. “or--”

“Or real vampires who think they’re fake vampires?” he suggested.

I made a small sound of frustration and bent forward, almost touching my head to the table.

“What about the bite marks?” he reiterated, suddenly very insistent for someone who had started the conversation with ‘What are you thinking?’ “I know that it’s similar, but how can you fake a bite mark?”

“Mulder, I didn’t even see it. You left before I could get a look at all,” I pointed out.

Mulder kind of shrugged and sat back.

“I honestly can’t believe you haven’t pulled out a record of vampires who can somehow command dogs or something.” I quipped. “Or-- or a werewolf-vampire hybrid that--”

Mulder interrupted me by blowing the end of his straw wrapper at my face. I stopped in my ramblings and dropped my hands mid-gesture. 

He chuckled. “Slow down, Scully. You’re starting to sound like me!”

“But you see my point?”

“I see it.” Mulder dunked his straw in the next to his arm. “But I refuse to acknowledge it.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he held up his hand to stop me.

“I appreciate the imagination, Scully, but I’ve never heard of anything like that. This fits the bill, plain and simple.”

“Mulder, I--”

“Order up!” The waitress intervened, carrying two huge portions on giant plates. “You were the cream of wheat, right?”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

She plopped the dish in front of me-- a bowl of steaming hot cereal and a slice of toast.

“And for you, sir,” she added, placing Mulder’s dish in front of him. I balked a bit at the sight of so much meat and cheese.

“Thanks!” he said cheerily, although his eyes revealed a one-track mind.

“Let me know if you need anything.”

Mulder shook his head. “Only someone as boring as you would opt for oatmeal.”

“Hey!”I mumbled around my first bite.. “It’s not oatmeal, it’s cream of wheat.”

“It’s lukewarm sludge trying to pass itself off as breakfast, that’s what it is,” Mulder told me. “This is breakfast.”

“It wouldn’t feel so lukewarm in your lap…” I muttered.

“Heard that.”

~~~~~

“How does it look?” I asked, wincing at my own reflection as I stretched to get a better look at the back.

Mulder shrugged. “Looks good to me.”

“You said that about all of them, Mulder!” I complained. “You’re not even paying attention! It’s your fault that I have to buy new clothes, anyway!”

Mulder struggled for words. “What do you want me to say, Scully? Do you want me to say it looks bad so you can feel validated trying on another outfit?”

“Just give me your honest opinion,” I instructed.

“And what opinion do you think that was, Scully? My fake opinion?” Mulder asked.

I sighed and smoothed the bottom of the dress. “I don’t know… it’s really… well, I don’t know what it is, but it’s really something.”

“Poofy?” Mulder suggested. “Flower-y?”

I shook my head. “This isn’t going to work.”

Mulder groaned and threw his head back. He was prone to acting like a toddler when impatient.

I went back into the “dressing room,” which was really just a marked-off corner guarded by a shower curtain. “Mulder, can you bring me that sweatshirt on the bottom rack?”

Frustrated and bored, Mulder trudged over to the clothing rack and pulled something off. As I undressed in the changing room he held the edge over the top of the curtain. “Is this it?”

“No, Mulder. This isn’t a sweatshirt, it’s a sweater. The dark green one,” I explained.

“Um…” he mumbled. I could hear the hangers shrieking against the metal rod as he browsed them.

“It’s green!” I reminded him. “The one I had before! Bottom rack!”

“Sir?” the clerk interrupted. “She’s talking about this one, I believe.”

“Oh.”

Mulder passed the dark green sack over the top. “Thank you. Could you grab me the jeans, too? The ones on the end?”

More shuffling as he searched for them. “These?”

I took a look at the jeans he’d flipped over the top. “Mulder, these are huge! The other end!”

Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could tell he was embarrassed by his stunned silence. I knew he didn’t mean any harm, but it was hard not to take offense.

Mulder quickly passed me the other pair I had set aside. I still had to wear the tank top underneath the sweatshirt to afford a comfortable pair of shoes, but it wasn’t a big deal. This was one of those trips that inevitably ended up in the woods-- I needed a good pair of sneakers.

After I’d gotten into my new clothes I grabbed a pair of shoes off the stand nearby and dragged Mulder up to the counter.

The clerk, after checking all the price tags and monotonously entering the amounts into his register, held out his hand for payment. “That’ll be $37.61.”

I whipped out a credit card as he loaded my old clothes into a plastic bag.

“Sorry… cash only.” The man frowned, realizing that he may just lose a customer. Little did he know how desperate I was.

I turned to Mulder, mustering the best pleading look I could while still maintaining my leading position in our relationship.

Mulder rolled his eyes, pouring on the drama perhaps just a little too thick, and reached into his stuffed pockets. In his attempt to whip out his own wallet as flippantly as possible, the entirety of his pocket was thrown out onto the floor.

No words were necessary-- he knew this image would never leave my mind. Even as I bent down to help him, he refrained from making any comments at all. He hastily counted out the correct change and pushed me out of the store before it could be given a second thought. I smacked shoulders with a man coming in as Mulder hurried me through the front door. 

Once we were outside, I couldn’t help but look back at Mulder and snort a bit in laughter.

“Don’t say it, Scully.”

“I just--”

“Scully,” he threatened.

“You tried so hard to be a smart-ass--”

“Scully, I swear--”

I giggled a bit again. “If anyone ever asks me what perfect comedic timing is, I won’t hesitate to tell that story.”

Mulder was tightlipped for another block.

“Hey, Mulder?” I murmured.

“What?”

“Is it just me or is it really quiet?” I asked.

Mulder froze, a hand darting to his pocket. “Tile floor.”

“What?”

“Tile floor. My keys!” Mulder looked at me, panicked, for an instant before turning and sprinting back the way we came.

“Mulder!” I shouted after him.

He screamed something over his shoulder, but I couldn’t quite catch it.

At least I was wearing new sneakers.

I broke into a jog after him, bumping into more than a few people on my way. This actually included the man Mulder had already pushed me into.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“Th-that’s okay!” he stammered back.

By the time I reached the thrift shop again, Mulder was already looking discouraged. 

“Did you find them?” I asked, somewhat out of breath.

He shook his head. “They must have… must have slid further away on the tile floor.”

“Oh!” I nodded in understanding.

Mulder grabbed at his temples anxiously. “Do you think they--”

He froze, pointing at something behind me.

“What?” I spun around to look out of the front window.

Our car sped down the street, the man I had bumped twice behind the wheel.

“Hey!” Mulder screamed. The man behind the counter flinched.

Mulder ran out of the shop, running down the street after the car. He kept yelling at the man to stop, blinded by rage enough that he could barely get the badge out of his pocket. Even shouting “FBI” at the top of his lungs wasn’t enough to get him to stop.

Out of breath, sweaty, and even more pissed off than he had been previously, Mulder reappeared at the door of the shop.

“Mulder--”

“Call the police, tell them to put out an APB on… I don’t know, whatever the plate number is…” he huffed.

I reached for my phone, but it rang before I could even touch it.

I squinted in confusion and answered. “Hello?”

“Agent Scully? This is the New London County police department…”

“Yes?” I stuck a finger in my other ear to hear over Mulder’s panting. “Yes, this Scully!”

“We just turned up a body in Pequot Woods Park… would you be able to come take a look at it?” asked the officer. He was clearly very shaken-- small towns, no murders.

I looked around the room, as though some solution would leap at me from the racks of clothing. “Well, you’ll either have to wait for us to walk or send a car…”

~~~~~

It was now about two o'clock in the afternoon and, as most of my quiet afternoons tend to turn out, I was kneeling over a corpse.

Mulder, who was somewhat squeamish but would never admit that, stood over the body and over me, looking around like an explorer who had just landed on an unknown shore. As he gazed about the rapidly darkening landscape, I could tell he just didn’t want to look at the body.

Which was somewhat fair, I supposed. The skin had turned a dark blue-purple, and it appeared slightly bloated. It wasn’t the most cheerful of sights.

As I found a more comfortable position on the ground, I noted that the sky’s sudden shift to darkness might forewarn of a thunderstorm. 

“Yeah…” The deputy, the man who had phoned me, was hanging even further back than Mulder, looking up at the sky in an attempt to erase the image from his mind. “There was something weird about her eyes…”

I nodded and shifted to look at his face. Indeed, the whites of the victim’s eyes were completely red. “Looks like burst capillaries…” I murmured. “An extreme case, but probably not the cause of death.”

“Then what is the cause of death?” Mulder asked.

I pulled off my rubber glove and sat back on the balls of my feet. “It’s hard to tell. She exhibits all the signs of asphyxiation, but…” I brushed her long hair away from her neck. “There aren’t any strangulation marks. Or any other injuries, for that matter.”

“You mean she didn’t fight back?”

I looked up at Mulder. “That’s what it seems like.”

Mulder’s nostril twitched as he looked back out at the nearby river. “Hey, Scully-- does that look weird at all to you?”

I followed his finger to the river, which seemed to be flowing like normal. “No.”

“It doesn’t look like a different color or…?” He shook his head a bit. “No?”

“No, but I’m not an environmental expert, Mulder.”

He nodded. “Right…” 

He stood there for a few more minutes, squinting at the water and shading his eyes against the diffused light before deciding to march over there.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, continuing to the task at hand. “The only thing these specific symptoms are truly congruous with is smothering, but…”

“But what?” the deputy asked.

I stood up. “I just doesn’t make sense with the landscape. Most smothering murders involve a plastic bag or something similar, which would leave condensation on the face and, in some cases, a small red ring around the neck.”

The deputy nodded.

“There’s nothing that would indicate drowning or inhalation of soil,” I added, “although I suppose an autopsy might turn something up. The only other way she could possibly have died like this would be from being locked in an air-tight space. Again, this might be possible but--”

“Then why dump her body in the woods?” Mulder finished for me. He was holding a small vial of dark liquid.

“Where have you been?” I asked. “What’s that?”

He held the vial up to the light, gazing through it. “It’s a sample of the river water. I’m going to send it to get analyzed.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

Mulder shrugged. “I’m starting to think there’s some kind of underground volcano here, Scully.”

I blinked. “A volcano?”

“Yeah. Actually, it would explain the death, too. You see…” Mulder made his way over to me, climbing over tangled tree roots and downed branches. “In Africa, they discovered that lakes were forming in the mouths of underground volcanoes. The gases not only taint the water, but they also create a ground-hugging cloud of carbon dioxide-- enough to strangle someone. They call it mazuku, or “evil wind.””

I sighed. “Mulder, I think that might be crazier than the kitsune.”

It was at this point that the deputy turned and walked away.

He scoffed. “Well, actually that’s my other explanation.”

“The kitsune?”

“Right. The wind and water kitsunes. Wind kitsunes steal air directly from people’s lungs, and water kitsunes leave still, sometimes poisoned water in their wake,” Mulder explained, as though this were fact. “The question remains: why are the kitsunes in Connecticut?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just started to walk back down to the river.

Still caught in Mulder’s last thoughts, I hung back for a minute before jogging after him. 

“Mulder,” I began, ready to mercilessly tear into his theory. “Volcanoes need extremely specific circumstances to form. They don’t just pop up out of the ground one day-- they form over thousands of years and only in the cracks between tectonic plates.”

“I know that…” Mulder nodded. He seemed especially distant and detached today, always staring into the distance when I was speaking directly to him.

“We’re in the northeast, Mulder. The Atlantic Ocean. we’re right in the middle of the Caribbean plate-- the nearest volcano must be thousands of miles away.”

“Exactly,” Mulder finally looked at me. “But the wind kitsune isn’t.”

He started to walk away again. I was having a decent amount of trouble following his train of thought.

“Which is it, Mulder?” I asked. “Is it a volcano or a kitsune?”

Mulder opened his mouth to respond, but a clap of thunder cut him off. In less than a second, rain fell from the sky like a tarp, instantly touching every surface with one concussive blast of sound. Mulder looked over at me, the corners of his mouth pinching upward in an expression that could be mistaken for a smile had it not been for his obvious look of disgust. He looked like a wet cat, only about twice as sarcastic.

“Hey, Scully?” Mulder glanced over at me. He barely moved his mouth.

“What?” I responded, just as pissed as he was.

“I think we have to walk home.”

I looked back at the officers, all of them jumping into cars and speeding off before they remembered that we were here.

“Damn…” he added, which was much too mild to describe his true feelings, so he tacked on “shit…” as well.

I sighed. “We’d better get walking.”

It was quite a sight-- two FBI agents attempting to hitchhike their way back to their motel room. We were unable to catch a ride at all, considering the awful weather. Even the kindest people were unwilling to spend any more time driving around. To be fair, driving was probably more dangerous than walking.

As the rain got worse, the lightning strikes more frequent and the thunder louder, Mulder and I continually picked up speed. Neither of us had hoods. Where in the hell had this storm come from?

Downed branches and trees made the trek home more difficult. The town was small, but we didn’t exactly know it and no one was willing to stop and lead us back. After stops in various stores to dry off, it took us a total of three hours to find our way back.

By that time, it was a miracle that we hadn’t gotten hypothermia or contracted some other disease. I felt like my very brain was frozen over-- I was unable to speak or even think straight.

“Mulder, why don’t you get a shower?” I suggested. 

He shook his head before throwing himself onto his makeshift bed. “The hot water heater’s still broken-- I asked. I don’t want any more cold water on me.”

I nodded in agreement and sat on the edge of the mattress. “We should at least get some towels and dry off.”

Mulder just groaned in response.

I peeled off my new sweatshirt and carried it into the bathroom with two fingers held an arms-length away to wring it out over the sink.

It was right then that the power went out.

It was inevitable. 

It was also only five o’clock, but the sun was obscured and we were so completely exhausted that sleep was the only option.

Soaked to the bone, we elected to set all of the clothes out to dry in the bathroom, wrapping ourselves up in warm, dry blankets. 

“Mulder?” I murmured.

He grunted.

“This was a stellar idea, by the way.”


End file.
